I ended the second call before I could grow too uncomfortable with his gratitude. Like Fetch, he felt that I had saved him from certain doom, but, unlike the shapeshifter, Kravayik had embraced his new life in a way I had not expected and for which he credited me too much.
I already knew that someone was using my new client as a pawn to reach me. If that had not been obvious when I had seen her photo, it certainly had been when she had called me using a number unavailable to her. Logic dictated that it might be her employer, Mr. Delke. I remembered that there had been a couple of other photos in the Tribune articles and grabbed a magnifying glass.
In one grainy picture that spoke of Delke’s contribution to the Institute, there proved to be a partial shot of the man himself. Delke appeared to be someone who did not like the limelight despite his philanthropy, but there was enough to enable me to identify him should we meet. Delke was a heavyset man clad in a suit likely as gray as the photo made it and who looked to have once been athletic before success made his life too easy. He had a squat face and only a ring of graying hair. His eyes were watery, and in the picture he wore a pleasant if uncertain smile.
He was no one or no thing I recognized. Delke—William Delke—was human, no elf or any other race of Feirie. It was possible that he was possessed, though. Questioning Claryce Simone might help answer that question.
As I departed, I did so knowing that my ultimate adversary expected me to meet with her. He also expected me to be suspicious. He also knew exactly who I was and where I could be found.
He could only be one of the Wyld . . . and, judging by his breaching of the Gate, a most powerful one, at that.
I saw her approach the house just minutes after my own arrival. I sat on a bench across the street from one of the most unlikely homes to be threatened by the “paranormal.” William Delke’s property was modern, clean, and no doubt filled with iron. It could not be more than twenty years old and had clearly recently been renovated to add symmetric Art Deco touches to the exterior, a popular European style just now touching Chicago.
It was no place that a “ghost”—and certainly not one of the Wyld—would invade.
She’d foregone her hat and the hair now free from it proved longer than I’d imagined. It swept down past her shoulders and, in doing so, made her more resemble Cleolinda than even the last incarnation.
“That her?”
“Quiet, Fetch.” I had made one slight detour before arriving. Of those exiles I could even somewhat trust, only Kravayik was more staunch than Fetch, and Kravayik had perhaps the most significant of tasks already. That left me with Fetch. “It is.”
He had not seen the previous incarnations. “Quite the cat’s meow, Master Nicholas.”
This time, I waved him to silence. He assumed his usual image, tongue lolling and tail wagging as he sat next to me. I judged the situation for a few seconds, then rose. Fetch followed at my side.
As we crossed, I called out, “Claryce Simone?”
She turned, her hair flying, her face at first looking puzzled and then hopeful as she realized who I must be.
I, in turn, stumbled to a halt in the street. She was Claryce Simone, but she was also Cleolinda. I had known that, had seen that, but still the moment caught me.
With an anxious growl, Fetch shoved me forward. At the same time, I saw Claryce suddenly growing fearful.
The truck horn blared in my ear as both Fetch and I just managed to make it to the curb. A deep voice shouted angrily in Sicilian. Claryce leapt forward, pulling me toward her. She had no idea that, while extremely painful, the truck would not have killed me. That would require much, much more. Still, I was very grateful to Fetch for keeping his presence of mind when I had acted like a fool.
But even knowing that, I was hard-pressed not to stand there only inches from her and simply stare. So many decades since the last time I had seen that face. I had hoped to never do so again and yet had yearned for one more chance.
I did not want either Claryce or Cleolinda dying again because of me.
“Are you all right?” she asked in great concern.
“Yes . . . I stumbled. Fortunately Fetch here is well-trained.”
“‘Fetch’?” She knelt down and without fear scratched his head. Fetch wagged harder and would have licked her hand if he had not known my opinion on that. “What a unique dog! He looks like something out of the Brothers Grimm!”
“He’s part wolf, part greyhound.”
“And part something else,” Claryce remarked offhandedly as she straightened. “Well-trained, definitely. A regular Rin-Tin-Tin!” She turned her attention back to me. “Are you certain you’re all right?”
“Other than feeling clumsy, yes. I arrived a little early, so I took up a place across the street and waited. I thought it was you, so I tried to catch you before you reached home.”
“‘Home.’” She looked at the house, my near accident all but forgotten now. “I should have mentioned something to William, but I felt so foolish—and still do.” Claryce looked down. “I’m sorry, Nick. I think I’ve had you come here unnecessarily.”
“Then why ask me to join you even sooner, Claryce?”
She frowned. It was all I could do to keep from calling her Cleolinda. Whatever ties she had to her former life, she was very much Claryce Simone, and I reminded myself I did her an injustice by even for a moment thinking her otherwise.
Suddenly wrapping her arms around herself as if freezing, she answered, “The night after I first called you . . . before I took off for Milwaukee . . . I felt as if something hung over me. Not stood over me or hovered, but hung. I felt as if it hungered for—for my soul.” She blushed. “That sounds so silly at the moment.”
Fetch growled before I could stop him. I understood his concern. This did not sound like something so “basic” as a shadow dweller. This bore the taint of something from the darker stretches of Feirie, even beyond Her Lady’s Court.
“Show me where,” I ordered.
My taking command of the situation comforted her, and she nodded. It was not any weakness on Claryce’s part that she so readily accepted my control of the situation. She was faced with something beyond her ken, something of which I was supposed to be an expert.
I silently prayed she would not die because of my rash decision to forge ahead.
“Fetch will wait out here,” I offered. With a house as modern as this, I expected that she would not want to risk offending William Delke by inviting in an animal that looked capable of ruining a room in more ways than one. Besides, he would enter through other methods.
Claryce surprised me. “No, bring him in. He makes me feel even more secure. William won’t mind a dog in here. He had a mastiff he adored until it died suddenly last year.”
She received a strong tail wag; Fetch was rarely invited inside any place but my own spartan abode. He cheerfully trotted into the house ahead of us, making certain to remain within a few feet. As he moved, he smelled the air. The shapeshifter gave no hint that he detected anything, but this was only the entrance.
The decor was as I anticipated. As modern as the house and as spotless as the exterior, with more Art Deco designs spread throughout. I noticed Fetch being very careful not to rub against a white couch as he trotted in the direction of what I assumed was the kitchen. Delke’s home seemed to demand that there be no dirt, no disorder.
In contrast to the rest of the house, a number of elegant, stately paintings decorated the walls, but what interested me more was one of William Delke himself. Portraits were far less common these days, but some of the wealthy were willing to pay the time and price to feel as if they were part of the old aristocracy rather than modern businessmen. Delke looked much as he had in the photo, albeit with fewer lines and a touch more youth—more likely the artist’s doing than because the painting was older. He was seated and holding what appeared to be a tiny book, although the hands obscured exact details.
“A tradition among the Delkes,” Claryce replie
d helpfully. “You’ll find the previous generations decorating the levels above.”
The sun was nearly down. I decided that there was no time to waste. Creatures of Feirie inhabiting the mortal world preferred the night, though some who adapted, as Fetch and Kravayik had, were comfortable even in the sunlight.
“Can you show me where you feel most uneasy?” I asked her.
“This way.”
I whistled to Fetch, who immediately joined us. A staircase rose through the middle of the house, various Delkes greeting us as we ascended. They all sat in the same pose, holding the same small, obscured book. The features ran true, although each previous generation appeared thinner than their progeny. Good living had evidently filled out the Delkes over time more than I had initially thought.
I expected Claryce to stop at the second floor—where there were obviously at least three bedrooms—but instead she continued on toward the third floor. “You don’t sleep here?”
“The other rooms are reserved for visiting family,” she explained. “But there’s one suite on the left side when we reach the top.”
Upon arrival on the third floor, I noted another door to the right. “What’s that?”
“It’s another suite, but it’s under renovation. He was kind enough to have them halt until my own place was ready.”
I immediately turned toward the unfinished suite. Before Claryce could stop me, I tried the knob. Finding it unlocked, I swung the door open. Fetch stood at my side, ready to fight.
Dust was all that met our unplanned entry. Whatever furniture was in here had been removed. Sheets covered most of the walls, but I could see here and there some repeated archlike pattern that did not seem to quite match the Art Deco style Delke now liked.
Fetch sat, a sign that he sensed no threat here. Likewise, my constant companion inside showed only boredom at our discovery here. Still, well aware that someone was toying with me, I took a moment longer to look around. Unfortunately, my search revealed nothing, which left me with one choice.
Eye will help . . . he replied indifferently.
The transformation to his reptilian gaze always began with a peculiar tingling. The room shifted, turned emerald.
And still there was nothing beyond the obvious.
Claryce joined me. “William wouldn’t like you being in here.”
“My apologies,” I returned, immediately willing my own eyes back. Turning to her, I gave a shrug. “I didn’t think it would do any harm to at least look.” Feeling as if I had yet missed something, I shut the door behind us as we moved on to her suite. Another, older, painting of a Delke watched us as we passed, but I paid it scant mind, already too familiar with the reoccurring features of the bloodline.
The decor of Claryce’s suite matched the sumptuousness and modern feel of the rest of the house and again radiated the notion that no Wyld or any other creature of Feirie would find comfort in this building.
Fetch trotted through the room, going from closet to en suite bathroom and on. I dared not summon the dragon’s gaze, but I studied the corners and possible hiding places for any sign.
Something occurred to me. “Where is the entrance to the attic?”
“There is no attic. The house was designed without one.”
I glanced up at the ceiling, which arched high. No attic. True, a basement would serve a shadow dweller as well, but they were generally too secretive to constantly make their way up three—four—flights of stairs merely to hang over a sleeping woman. My gaze continue to journey around the bedroom even though I was at a loss as to where there might be a hiding place for even the smallest, weakest denizen of Her Lady’s Court—
My eyes froze on an etched border—yet again not fashioned in the latest style—running across the top of the wall opposite the entrance. The border did not repeat on the other walls, but that was not what stopped me. Slowly, I was beginning to understand what the pattern represented. The suits of a deck, but not the suits so well-known to anyone who had played cards in Chicago or anywhere else in the mortal world.
“The cards . . .” I muttered without thinking.
I felt he within me stir to anxiousness. Fetch, who had just emerged from peering under the bed, froze and stared at me.
“‘Cards’?” Claryce said, evidently hearing me but misunderstanding what I had said. In contrast to my own growing consternation, she gave a light laugh. “I shouldn’t tell you, but William’s family fortune was made from playing cards. His great-great grandfather was said to be a real shark. He turned his winnings into the start of Delke Enterprises—”
I no longer paid any attention. Something I’d seen in the other suite now made terrible sense. I barged past her, Fetch at my heels. The dragon hissed urgently as we raced to the other set of rooms.
Throwing aside the door, I rushed to the opposing end of that suite and tore down one of the sheets covering the walls. For the first time, I had a good look at the repeating arch pattern set directly across from the card border in Claryce’s room. I saw, much to my dismay, that it was not actually an arch, but rather a representation of a rounded, shimmering form more reminiscent of a rainbow turned inward at the bottom. Within the rainbow itself was a half-seen landscape. I knew that landscape as Feirie.
The border was one repetition after another of the Gate.
CHAPTER 4
Imagine the ability to shuffle time and reality and make of them what you will. That was the power of the Clothos Deck, so named for the arcane plateau in Feirie where it was first found. No one, not even those high in Her Lady’s Court, knew its origins. All that could be guessed was that it was the work of one of the first and most powerful spellweavers to rise in the nether world. Somehow, he, she, or it had tapped into the very essence of reality and bound a bit of it into the deck. Why the spellweaver had chosen a deck was a matter of the oft-twisted minds of those of Feirie. Possibly because the deck gave the potential outcomes more variation, possibly just because the deck’s creator had been mad even beyond the standards of the dark realm.
Some said that the cards had been in part responsible for aiding man by drawing back Feirie’s dominance and thus letting man rise. I didn’t know how much truth there was in that nor who had wisely decided to scatter the cards throughout both worlds, but I did know too well what the power of one card had been when wielded by Oberon that last encounter. Razing the city, and the deaths that had resulted from it, had been necessary to prevent further catastrophe, but the card had left its mark. No one now recalled where the Chicago River had actually flowed or the entire city block—inhabitants included—near Wabash that had simply ceased to exist.
No one recalled it but me . . . and the dragon.
Oberon might be dead, but William Delke, either willingly or as a puppet, somehow served his legacy. I dared not say anything to Claryce, but I knew that somehow I had to get her far away from here.
“Nick?” She put a hand on my shoulder, steadying me. Only then did I realize I’d been shaking. Inside, the dragon was faring little better.
Fetch suddenly growled at a marble fireplace on the wall to the right of us. Although I could perceive nothing in the darkness within, I still felt the hair on my neck stiffen.
I tried to keep my expression and tone even. “I’d like to look around here. You can wait downstairs for me.”
She did not leave. “You shouldn’t even be in here. I can’t just—”
“I’ll just look around. I won’t touch anything. There’s probably nothing, but this way we can be certain.”
Fetch tried to help by nudging her toward the door. Claryce finally nodded. When she was at the entrance, she glanced back a last time. “You won’t be long?”
“One look around. That’s all. I promise.”
Fetch casually bumped against the door, pushing her toward the hall. Claryce shut the door, finally leaving us alone.
“What do you smell?” I asked Fetch.
“Wyld.”
I waited for more, but t
he shapeshifter had nothing else to add. Fetch was basic; he had smelled Wyld. That was enough. Had he noticed anything more, he would have said so.
The Wyld had to be well-shielded or else I would’ve sensed it myself. Trying not to be distracted by that or by further thoughts concerning the cards and the Gate, I moved toward the fireplace. The scrollwork on the edge of the white mantle had a touch of the woodlands in it that reminded me just a bit too much of Feirie. The interior remained a black pit, so black I wondered if it had purposely been painted that way.
I began to sense the same otherworldliness that Fetch had. My hand stayed near the inside of my coat. I still couldn’t pierce the darkness, and that bothered me.
Eye will show you . . .
I blinked and the world turned emerald . . . except in the fireplace.
Fetch growled a warning.
My hand thrust deep into my coat.
A tremendous suction pulled me toward the fireplace. Had I not been prepared for some threat, I would’ve sunk right into the darkness . . . the very Wyld I’d been seeking. Instead, I managed to twist enough to get my feet first. They slammed into the sides of the fireplace, shaking every bone in my body but for the moment bracing me against the suction. The strain was awful, but I knew that the other choice would be far worse.
Fetch’s growling warned me that he was trying to come to my aid. “Keep back!”
There was nothing he could do for me, and getting closer would only serve to endanger him as well. This was no mere shadow dweller. This was a primal force from the darkest recesses of Feirie. The Wyld, those that crossed from Feirie without Her Lady’s permission with dark purpose in mind, came in many forms. Yet, in more than a millennium and a half, I’d never seen a thing like this before . . . and if I survived, I hoped I’d never see one again.
The sword came out. I could see nothing to strike at, only the gaping blackness. It was as if I fought a hole, a very deadly hole.
My knees were about to buckle and my grip on the sword grew shaky.
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